UFCThe Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is a U.S.-based mixed martial arts organization, recognized as the largest MMA promotion in the world. The UFC is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada and is owned and operated by Zuffa, LLC. This promotion is responsible for solidifying the sport's postion in the history-books.
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The problem is that the judges aren't actually supposed to give it the weight that they do. Damage, effective striking, and effective grappling are the three main criteria. Aggression and control are supposed to be tie breakers not round winners.

Neither of them should even be criteria in the first place they have nothing to do with winning an MMA fight outside of what would fall under the other criteria and could and should be judged under those criteria. It seriously screws up the sport because you wouldn't have nearly as many lay and prayers or mud fighters without it. Luckily Lawlor wasn't rewarded for his mud fighting the other night and GSP being rewarded for his LNP wasn't relevant to his victory since he outright won 3 rounds with the other criteria.

The problem is that the judges aren't actually supposed to give it the weight that they do. Damage, effective striking, and effective grappling are the three main criteria. Aggression and control are supposed to be tie breakers not round winners.

In the unified rules of MMA damage is not it's own criteria - although I believe when the UFC does thier little pre-fight rules thing it makes it look like one.

It's actually a sub-component of effective striking, which takes into account quality of strikes, quantity of strikes, as well as visible damage, "rocking" (stuns) and knockdowns.

This is why the judges saw the fight the way they did - GSP landed more power shots (most important sub-criteria), however condit landed more shots and they were both visibly damaged. GSP maybe a little worse for wear near rounds 4 and 5, but thankfully the fights aren't scored on what fighters look like at the end of the fight. Judges score each round as they go. Condit looked a lot worse for the first half of the fight than GSP did. GSP would have won the "damage" category in rounds 1 and 2, probably not 3, and the others were a toss up. It was towards the end of the fight that Condit would have scored points for damage. Plus GSP dominated in every other category the entire fight.

That's true. I just used it to be funny. Anyways, Gsp won the fight, Condit coulda/shoulda ended it when Gsp dropped. Overall Gsp looked good, do I think he can beat Silva? No. But he will wipe the floor with anyone in the WW division.

In the unified rules of MMA damage is not it's own criteria - although I believe when the UFC does thier little pre-fight rules thing it makes it look like one.

It's actually a sub-component of effective striking, which takes into account quality of strikes, quantity of strikes, as well as visible damage, "rocking" (stuns) and knockdowns.

This is why the judges saw the fight the way they did - GSP landed more power shots (most important sub-criteria), however condit landed more shots and they were both visibly damaged. GSP maybe a little worse for wear near rounds 4 and 5, but thankfully the fights aren't scored on what fighters look like at the end of the fight. Judges score each round as they go. Condit looked a lot worse for the first half of the fight than GSP did. GSP would have won the "damage" category in rounds 1 and 2, probably not 3, and the others were a toss up. It was towards the end of the fight that Condit would have scored points for damage. Plus GSP dominated in every other category the entire fight.

It is included in effective grappling as well and is viewed separately from the other aspects regardless because it is heavily weighted. It isn't like the fight is scored with a checklist and if you win 3 of 5 or whatever you get the round. It is a matter of relevancy what happened for what amount of time to what degree and how are those things weighted within our criteria.

I don't know who is arguing that Condit won the fight because he didn't but that doesn't mean the judges got the scores right.

It is included in effective grappling as well and is viewed separately from the other aspects regardless because it is heavily weighted. It isn't like the fight is scored with a checklist and if you win 3 of 5 or whatever you get the round. It is a matter of relevancy what happened for what amount of time to what degree and how are those things weighted within our criteria.

I don't know who is arguing that Condit won the fight because he didn't but that doesn't mean the judges got the scores right.

I realize it's not a checklist - it's very much widely arbitrary.

But again - if we are looking at just visible damage alone it's not scored in a "one-shot" deal at the end of the fight (like the OP makes it sound). After round 1 - GSP wins in the damage department for the cut he opened near the end of the round. Same after round 2 as I don't recall GSP looking too bad. Lets say Condit wins round 3. If GSP looks no worse after the 4th round, and he opened another cut on Condit, then GSP should win round 4.

Again - I realize it's not a checklist, but thats how the judges should be approaching it.

But again - if we are looking at just visible damage alone it's not scored in a "one-shot" deal at the end of the fight (like the OP makes it sound). After round 1 - GSP wins in the damage department for the cut he opened near the end of the round. Same after round 2 as I don't recall GSP looking too bad. Lets say Condit wins round 3. If GSP looks no worse after the 4th round, and he opened another cut on Condit, then GSP should win round 4.

Again - I realize it's not a checklist, but thats how the judges should be approaching it.

I am not talking about cuts and bruises I am talking about the accumulation of power of strikes landed and damage done by attempted submissions.

I am not talking about cuts and bruises I am talking about the accumulation of power of strikes landed and damage done by attempted submissions.

well same idea, each criteria / sub critera is socred on a round by round basis, not at the end of the fight.

You could land 100 power strikes in round 1, and if by an act of god the other fighter is still alive you could lose the fight if he lands 5 power shots in each of rounds 2-5, and you landed nothing.

Even though total power strikes were 100-20, you lost rounds 2-5, if all other factors were equal.

You can't just look at the fighters faces at the end of the fight and say Condit did more damage and should have won. If Condit does all that damage in the last round, and GSP opens up 4 cuts spread out over the first 4 rounds, he's going to win the effective striking category in the first 4 rounds.